Darcy returned the slap on the back. “I am delighted you are here, Fitzwilliam. It has been the happiest Christmas in my memory also.”
Pemberley
11thJanuary
Jane,
I shall not pretend I am not deeply grieved by your silence, yet because I love you and because I cannot dispel my concern for your happiness, I shall make another attempt.
I have weathered my first Christmas at Pemberley! We made merry on Christmas Eve, attended church on Christmas Day (and danced that evening, after all those who would despise us for it had retired), toasted the servants and tenants on St Stephen’s Day and feasted with our neighbours on Twelfth Night. On the whole, it was happier than we could have hoped, though not without incident. I like to think, however, that Lady Catherine felt better for being able to inform me of at least three ways a day in which I erred.
I jest, but I found I did not mind her imperiousness half so much as I thought I would. She and I have had an exceedingly tumultuous acquaintance, but she is esteemed by so many of the people I have come to love, I cannot but be moved by her plight. Darcy and I sat with her in the gallery one morning, listening to her tales of all the people in the paintings there, including a few about Darcy’s mother he had not heard before. Notwithstanding all her antipathy, I will ever remember those few hours with great fondness.
Now the decorations have been taken down, all my guests are gone, and Pemberley is quiet once more. Is it the same at Netherfield? We heard from Mary that Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst did not join you. I hope that did not make your celebrations any less agreeable. I wish you would write and tell me about it, though it seems probable you will not. I am not entirely without hope, though, for if I can make peace with a woman so wholly prejudiced against me as Lady Catherine, surely I can reconcile with my own sister?
Wishing you a happy New Year,
Elizabeth
Saturday 23 January 1813, Hertfordshire
Pevensey Hall
21stJanuary
Jane,
I must say I was rather alarmed by the tone of your last letter. You sounded rather hysterical. Yes, I received your previous note but had not yet found the time to reply—nor, indeed, realised there was any urgent need to do so. Certainly, none of your news was remarkable enough to warrant any haste on my part. Neither was your eagerness to hear how dreadful my Christmas was likely to induce me to be prompt.
I do congratulate you, of course, on being satisfied with your first Christmas as mistress of your own house, though I do hope you will not make a habit of petitioning me for compliments. As your friend and better, you must allow me to tell you it is excessively coarse. Unfashionable though your sister’s self-sufficiency may be, it does at least make her easier to please.
I hope you are not too disappointed to learn that in truth I had a very agreeable Christmas. My stay at Pemberley was tolerable, but then the splendour of the place is such that even your relations being there could not lessen the elegance of our party. Your sister continues to be Lady C’s favourite, but that also turned out to my advantage, for it saved me the inconvenience of her notice.
E yet boasts the same graceless independence and brazen coquetry of which you have ever accused her, but her novelty, and thus her potency, is diminishing. She is becoming less interesting by the moment, so let us speak of her no longer. Of much more interest was my attendance at Lady O’s Twelfth Night Ball. I know you will congratulate me when I tell you of the favourable reception I enjoyed there?—
“Mrs Bennet is here to see you, ma’am.”
Jane shoved her letter between the cushion and her leg with seconds to spare before her mother burst into the room. “Good afternoon, Mama. Would you like some tea?”
“No, I am too vexed for tea. Your father has had a letter from Mr Collins. That sly Charlotte Collins, whom we all treated as a friend for so many years, has begotten herself a boy child, and they have written to boast of it.”
“I am sure they did not mean to boast.”
“Oh yes, yes they did! We must already endure being turned out of our own home as soon as your father draws his last breath. There is no call for them to taunt us with heirs as well. And you can count on their knowing that you are not yet increasing. How cruel of them to gloat of their issue in the face of that failure!”
Tears sprang to Jane’s eyes. “I would hardly call it a failure.”
“Well, it scarcely qualifies as a success.”
A tear dripped off her chin, followed by others she did not trouble herself to wipe away.
Her mother peered at her questioningly. “Jane? Oh, Jane, Jane! Calm yourself! Let not the thoughtlessness of those wretched Collinses’ distress you. You will be blessed eventually. If your sister has managed it, I daresay you will.”
Jane let out an exasperated wail and shook her head. “No, I am beginning to think I shallneverdo as well as Lizzy. Even my Christmas celebrations were inferior to hers apparently.”
“Never mind,” Mrs Bennet replied, patting her hand. “Perhaps you could go to Pemberley next year and spend Christmas with her?”
Jane barked a harsh laugh. “I am sure that would please my husband no end!”
